ben brantley’s blog

Thursday marked the apogee of our road trip — the far-point of our drive after which all the rest can be correctly classified as “coming back.” We originally based our road trip around plans to go on a vacation with my family in South Carolina, and so, after ten days, we finally made it into the state and along some familiar (and not-so-familiar) roads to my childhood stomping grounds. I actually grew up in Columbia, but both of my parents and their parents are from Orangeburg, and that’s where they live now.

One of the best things about driving south from Raleigh into South Carolina is that you get to go by South of the Border. SotB is a fantastic little theme park/truck stop/fireworks megaplex/tourist trap with billboards advertising the giant sombrero posted on I-95 as far north as Maine, I think. Here’s the sombrero tower:

Unfortunately, we did not have a chance to go up in it. Instead, I found a tall human and had her “imitiate” the tower instead:

We found some trinkets and fun junk, we wandered into a series of restaurants that all looked like they were doing even worse with the economy than they were doing the last time I ventured in them, over a decade ago. We found a giant gorilla (use Zamba for scale, if you will):

We found a $699 fireworks package that would have necessitated leaving most of our travel gear on the sidewalk, had we decided to purchase it and take it with us:

And, I found some fun abstracts:

It was only a matter of hours from there before we wearily wandered into Casa Brantley in Orangeburg and happily collapsed into our parents’ arms. Okay, we didn’t do that, except for Zamba. We’re here for a few days before we start our vacation at the beach, and it’ll be busy with family visits and a special birthday party.

Today we “moved” across town to spend a night with our friends Carl and Melissa. These guys came to visit us in California one time, joining us for adventures in Mammoth, even, and now it was our turn to return the favor. We’d be out to Raliegh once before to shoot their wedding, but this time it was pure relaxation.

Melissa is a music schoolteacher, so she had to work all day and put up with us at night. Carl is self-employed, and he was able to mosey around Raleigh with us in the daytime. We had an “adventurous” time hanging out with their dog, Chloe, and I put that in quotes because our pups had an… interesting relationship with her. Imagine Chaco at his most hyper young age, and then square it. No, go ahead and take the factorial. That’s Chloe for you! I only got one picture the whole time we were there, and it was quite blurry, but it’s still worth a thousand words:

It was really fun to stay a night with the Taylors and hang out chatting until the wee hours of the morning. I can only imagine how tired they were, having to get up and go to work the next day. We, also, had to get up in the morning and be on our way, because tomorrow was Going Home Day.

Another blessedly short driving day for us! We could really get used to this, only moving a few hundred miles every so often. Today we head into the metropolis of Raleigh to visit a handful of different friends, some of whom are even my co-workers. I’m not sure what it is about Raliegh that seems to coalesce so many of them (okay, four or five) in one place, but the weather cooperated with us and we enjoyed some sunny, pleasant fall days.

Here’s Colleen’s fiance, Doug, checking out some Newfie flues:

A romp in the yard, with Summit, the fantastically-quick border collie.

He reminded me of Chaco when Chaco was a young lad.

After an afternoon siesta, we headed out to dinner with Abe and Kathleen. They took us to a yummy tapas restaurant, which is just a fancy Spanish word for eating a bunch of small appetizer plates instead of a regular entree. I think we shared 8 or 9, and they were all delicious. Abe and Kathleen seem pretty comfortable and settled in Carrboro, but we did encourage them to come visit us one day in Colorado.

We know it was going to be a jam-packed agenda in Raleigh, and this day was the first of several where we had to squeeze in a lot. We returned to Colleen’s house, where they were kindly going to let us spend the night, and both Matt and Rhian had shown up and brought dessert! We played with dogs, ice cream, and camera gear (not at the same time, mostly) and had a good hour to spend with everyone before fatigue set in.

Today was a refreshingly short drive, and it’s the first time we’ve managed to arrive at our destination by mid-afternoon. That turned out quite fortuitous, because I apparently needed a 1.75-hour nap in the cool, dark hotel room before our evening adventures. This hotel is one of the best I have stayed in in our cheap-o price range, and I learned from the incredibly dog-friendly front desk lady that they also host a Newf conventions on an annual basis. There really aren’t a lot of Newfoundland dog gatherings, especially in the south where it’s quite warm, so I guess we just stumbled into the right place.

Speaking of stumbling in, we didn’t just elect to stop in Salisbury because it is the home of Cheerwine and Food Lion grocery stores. We got to visit Rhodes, my youth leader from the last millennium, and the rest of the Woolly clan. It turns out they just relocated to Salisbury themselves, and so they were settling in to what is a very nice abode in the downtown area. They can pretty much walk to work and school, and it seemed like a lovely place. They have a great fenced back yard in which Zamba enjoyed visiting their puppy:

After a nice pizza dinner with Cheerwine-in-the-bottle to wash it down, we retired to our hotel and took a long snooze.

Never been to Bat Cave?

Well, me neither, until our family ended up with a cabin there. Actually, it’s more like a nice three-story house, and it’s on the river, and my grandparents were nice enough to let us stay there this weekend, so here we are.

Bat Cave is in a mountain valley a few miles over from Asheville proper. You have to drive around to the north or south a bit to get to it, so it’s a 25-minute drive down 10 miles of twisty roads, many of whose hairpin turns can easily put our own Boulder Canyon to shame. (Though you’re unlikely to feel your ears pop or get a reverse squeeze on the way back down.)

We slept in and then visited Camp Lutheridge today, and it was a nice afternoon jaunt. After sticking our noses (Zamba’s big one, plus our regular-sized ones) up to the fancy glass doors on the fancy new multi-purpose meeting facility, complete with fitness center and, apparently, indoor climbing wall (what is this, REI or something?), we moseyed on down to the pool and were immediately accosted by about 15 kids and 5 bored parents, all of whom mostly wanted to see “that giant, black dog.” Zamba did really well with it, and it was one of the first times I’ve watched her interact with a bunch of kids all at once. She was a trooper. She eventually got tired of kissing and dragged her new keeper over to the porch to lie down on the cool concrete foundation, but otherwise I don’t think she could have been happier.

Well, we found a way to make her even happier (or least tireder) when we got down to the lake. Whoosh… in she went, no questions asked, and then she just started swimming. In circles. Aimlessly. It was like she had a lifetime of swimming saved up her in 16-month-old self and she just finally found a venue where the water was deep enough and calm enough to get it out. There were a few kids paddling canoes out there, and they watched with funny looks on their faces as she swam out to them. Chaco did his usual thing on the shore with chasing sticks, but only to about 20 feet out like normal.

That is, until we got in a canoe and paddled out. Then both dogs gladly swam out with us, all the way across the lake. Chaco looked like he was going to die halfway across, but I mostly think he is just a little out of shape and practice. Zamba is a natural, but I half think she kind of floats her way across and paddlewheels it. It’s not surprising to see a Newf swim (there are some great underwater videos on YouTube if you search for them, by the way), but she is graceful in way that, well, anywhere else… she’s not.

After a relatively long swim and several jaunts in the grass, we took the tuckered toddler and her older brother back up the hill via PB trail. Along the way, we’d learned that my cousin David was working at camp today, so we considered surprising him at his next shift at the Snack Bar, but then we learned that this weekend group elected to have their Snack Bar at 9:30. 9:30? That’s way too late for us old codgers. So, we called Kelly and him up and went to a delicious Asian buffet dinner with them instead.

I don’t have much in the way of exciting pictures from today, because I decided carrying the camera and Zamba was a liability on such a long hike around camp. (I was right.) However, I did shoot this deck railing at the cabin in the morning. You can enjoy it as you dream of what exciting enty could come your way tomorrow — when, by the way, we’ll on our way to Salisbury.

Day 5 was one of our most scenic drives, and we shot through the Applachians of central and eastern Tennessee before pouncing on Asheville by the end of the day. We actually got a pretty late start (again), so it was well on into evening before we completed our 4.5 hours of driving. We also just barely missed the eye of a monster storm in the middle of the mountains, but there was enough of the edge of it to drench us and our cartop carrier (complete with holes, courtesy a misrigging on day one).

There were some nice rest stops, but none so idyllic as the previous, lush landscapes catering perfectly to dogs. In fact, Tennnessee in particular seems to have something in it for dogs, because each stop has a big, grassy area in the middle that is ringed by signs specifically proclaiming “No pets.” Then there is typically a tiny grass strip on the other side of the parking lot, behind the semi parking, where you see “pet run.” I guess that works if your pet likes to run in a straight line, but ours do not. We sort of broke the rules and just ran them wherever we could find a little open space and not too many people around to get perturbed.

Of course, by the time we made it into the most scenic spots, it was getting late in the day, it was dark and misty because of the rain storms, and we were eager to make it to Asheville so we could enjoy… Luella’s:

I should have followed the instructions from the reviewers on the web and gotten the ribs, but I really like getting pulled pork sandwiches for so many reasons. First, they’re my favorite when done right. Second, they’re a little less messy. Third, they have a fairly constrained portion compared to stuff like ribs, which can get very big. Fourth, they’re often the cheapest thing on the menu. And fifth, if I try them everywhere, I have a good control for my comparison.

Luella’s pork sandwiches were yummy, but no comparison to Pappy’s. Their sauce was tasty as well, and they did have an attempt at hush puppies. We both sampled their mac ‘n cheese, which was probably the best thing on the menu. And, they have Cheerwine on tap. If you have not had it before, you should go read about it here and then try it out the next time you go on a Giant Road Trip. By the way, I didn’t actually have the Cheerwine, since I don’t like it with barbecue. However, we soon will traverse the home of Cheerwine: Salisbury, North Carolina. So I am confident I can get some there.

Tomorrow we’ll take a breather and enjoy the mountains a little more.